Home Medicine Development of a rapid and quantitative lateral flow assay for the simultaneous measurement of serum κ and λ immunoglobulin free light chains (FLC): inception of a new near-patient FLC screening tool
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Development of a rapid and quantitative lateral flow assay for the simultaneous measurement of serum κ and λ immunoglobulin free light chains (FLC): inception of a new near-patient FLC screening tool

  • John P. Campbell EMAIL logo , Jennifer L.J. Heaney , Meena Shemar , Dene Baldwin , Ann E. Griffin , Emma Oldridge , Margaret Goodall , Zaheer Afzal , Tim Plant , Mark Cobbold , Roy Jefferis , Joannes F.M. Jacobs , Christopher Hand and Mark T. Drayson
Published/Copyright: August 9, 2016

Abstract

Background:

Serum free light chains (FLC) are sensitive biomarkers used for the diagnosis and management of plasma cell dyscrasias, such as multiple myeloma (MM), and are central to clinical screening algorithms and therapy response criteria. We have developed a portable, near-patient, lateral-flow test (Seralite®) that quantitates serum FLC in 10 min, and is designed to eliminate sample processing delays and accelerate decision-making in the clinic.

Methods:

Assay interference, imprecision, lot-to-lot variability, linearity, and the utility of a competitive-inhibition design for the elimination of antigen-excess (‘hook effect’) were assessed. Reference ranges were calculated from 91 healthy donor sera. Preliminary clinical validation was conducted by retrospective analysis of sera from 329 patients. Quantitative and diagnostic results were compared to Freelite®.

Results:

Seralite® gave a broad competitive-inhibition calibration curve from below 2.5 mg/L to above 200 mg/L, provided good assay linearity (between 1.6 and 208.7 mg/L for κ FLC and between 3.5 and 249.7 mg/L for λ FLC) and sensitivity (1.4 mg/L for κ FLC and 1.7 mg/L for λ FLC), and eliminated anomalous results from antigen-excess. Seralite® gave good diagnostic concordance with Freelite® (Roche Hitachi Cobas C501) identifying an abnormal FLC ratio and FLC difference in 209 patients with newly diagnosed MM and differentiating these patients from normal healthy donors with polyclonal FLC.

Conclusions:

Seralite® sensitively quantitates FLC and rapidly identifies clinical conditions where FLC are abnormal, including MM.

  1. Author contributions: All the authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this submitted manuscript and approved submission.

  2. Research funding: Seralite® development was funded by Abingdon Health Ltd. J.H. receives research funding from Abingdon Health Ltd.

  3. Employment or leadership: M.S., A.G., E.O. and D.B. are, or were, employees of Abingdon Health Ltd. M.D. has, and R.J. has previously had, an advisory role with Abingdon Health Ltd. J.C., M.G., R.J., M.C., T.P., C.H. and M.D. have shares in Abingdon Health Ltd.

  4. Honorarium: None declared.

  5. Competing interests: The funding organization(s) played no role in thestudy design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretationof data; in the writing of the report; or in the decision to submit the report for publication.

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Supplemental Material:

The online version of this article (DOI: 10.1515/cclm-2016-0194) offers supplementary material, available to authorized users.


Received: 2016-3-8
Accepted: 2016-7-7
Published Online: 2016-8-9
Published in Print: 2017-3-1

©2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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